Excerpts taken from an article here on YeshivaWorld.com
~ We formatted the most relevant parts in italics below ~
The second half of the Sunday morning session at the Agudah convention addressed the devastating impact of substance abuse and other kinds of addiction on individuals, families and the Orthodox community. Entitled, "We are Not Immune: Facing Up to the Reality of Substance Abuse and Compulsive Behaviors," it featured Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski MD, the founder of Gateway Rehabilitation Center and an internationally renowned expert in treating addictions; and Rabbi Yisroel Reisman, Rav, Agudath Israel of Madison.
Rabbi Reisman was first to speak and spoke about the role of the rov - a "general practitioner" - he said in matters like addictions. It is important, he contended, that rabbonim recognize the medical nature of addictions and consult with those who have extensive clinical experience with the various factors that pertain to addiction, and the treatments available for them.
Utilizing a Midrash that characterizes Dovid HaMelech as contending that chochma resides in the head and Shlomo HaMelech as saying it is located in the heart, Rabbi Reisman explained the roles of the intellect and emotions in life, and in psychological imbalances like addiction. He asserted that a true addict cannot be reasoned with, and cannot, in fact, really be "cured" in a definitive, final way. The only solution, such as it is, to addiction, Rabbi Reisman said, is "and entire reset of his mehalech hachaim, of the way he thinks."
Rabbi Reisman went on to decry the drinking of schnapps, particularly by young men, and characterized it as "not a Yiddishe zach." He also had words for internet users, cautioning them to immediately "click off" pop-up ads and the like that seek to take the user to articles or sites he should not be seeing - to treat the offerings no differently from nonkosher food one is offered; made the case for ensuring that our children have a connection to a rov or rebbe to whom they can turn for life advice; and asserted that "it would be a healthy thing" for yeshivos to offer their talmidim - "especially the masmidim" - outlets for physical exercise, something he contended is important for not only their physical but mental wellbeing.
The morning's final speaker was Dr. Twerski, who began his remarks by addressing smoking, which he said has been halachically prohibited by most Gedolim. He had strong words for those who smoke despite being in positions of influence over young people.
Then he moved on to drinking, and referenced an idea from the Sfas Emes, who asked how Noach, who was "a righteous man" and surely knew his tolerance of alcohol, could have misjudged and become drunk after leaving the teiva. Said the Sfas Emes, Noach knew only the pre-Flood world, but the world had changed. "We were raised in an old world," said Dr. Twerski. The world we live in, he said "changes too, every second, every hour." The environment in which children are growing up today "would have unimaginable years ago." The ubiquity of the internet and hand-held devices that can bring terrible ideas and images in an instant, he noted sadly, presents a danger to us all. Dr. Twerski said he had seen cases of internet addiction in "the most choshuveh mishpachos."
"Gambling, alcohol, drug addiction - these are all things in which a person can lose control," the speaker noted. "And an addict doesn't think logically." Which is why addicts cannot be reasoned with - or even treated, Rabbi Twerski asserted, by any mental health professional. Only a specialist in addiction, he said, can undertake the task of guiding an addict to reform.
And that process, he said, does not end with the end of the addict's indulgence of his addiction. That is, rather, on the beginning. "We have a term for an alcoholic who has stopped drinking: a 'dry drunk."
Only a "major personality overhaul" can have truly long-term good effects. That reflects what the Rambam says about a baal teshuva, said Dr. Twerski, that the person who truly repents has changed essentially, that he is, in the Rambam's words, "no longer the same person."
Dr. Twerski endorsed the idea of "12 step programs," saying "they work" and denying that they need to have a Christian component. Each of the steps they entail, he said, "is in Chazal."
The speaker also stressed the need to know not only "what to do but what not to do," noting that "rachmonus can be destructive" in the context of dealing with an addict.
Dr. Twerski also bemoaned the lack of a facility for the treatment of addicts in the frum community, and spoke strongly against drinking to intoxication - and, in particular, offering young people alcohol - on Purim.
See this thread on our forum where we mentioned how our network was discussed at the Agudah Convention.